“I fancy I’d never make a player, then,” remarked Hugh ruefully. “I don’t get angry very easily, you see.”
His regret was so evident that the others laughed, and Nick said: “Don’t worry about that, ’Ighness. You’ll get over it bravely when you come to play. Just let a couple of fellows sit on your head and another one twist your ankle for you and you’ll be mad enough to eat dirt!”
Nothing came of Thursday night’s affair. Possibly faculty didn’t quite know where to begin, since fully two-thirds of the school was concerned. The fracas went down in history as the Junior Meeting Riot, and the Campus, the school monthly, managed to get a lot of sly fun out of it in its next issue. Leslie and several other more prominent members of the senior class were taken to task for allowing matters to go as far as they had, which, considering the fact that they had sustained various injuries in their efforts to promote peace, was rather unkind. In the end faculty prohibited future interference with junior meeting and, lest the temptation should prove too great for the lower middlers, provided that the meeting should take place in Manning common room.
Hugh took his punishment philosophically, although he really regretted having to give up trying for the football team. He had just begun to find something besides hard work in the daily practice, and, while he hadn’t for a moment counted on making the first, he had entertained hopes of finding a place on the second team. It was Tom Hanrihan who took the matter hardest. Tom, a big, raw-boned, good-hearted chap of eighteen, took his commission of coaching the “rookies” very seriously, and Hugh’s defection grieved him sadly. The talk that Hugh had received from Jimmy, otherwise the assistant principal, Mr. Rumford, was nothing to what Hanrihan had to say to him Saturday morning. Hanrihan told Hugh quite explicitly how many kinds of an idiot he was and would listen to no excuses.
“You seem to think all we have to do is waste time on you fellows and then you can drop out whenever it pleases you. Making a football team isn’t any cinch, Ordway, when you’ve got only nine weeks to do it. You haven’t any right to take up our time if you don’t mean to stick it out.”
“But I did mean to stick it out,” expostulated Hugh. “It wasn’t my fault if those beggars got me and——”
“You shouldn’t have given them the chance. You shouldn’t have had anything to do with that scrap, anyway. (This despite the fact that the speaker had a very puffy and discolored left eye!) When a fellow goes out for the team he’s supposed to look after himself. He’s trying for the—the biggest thing in school, and he ought to realize it. You had a good chance to make good. I as much as told you that a dozen times. (If he had, Hugh didn’t recall it!) You showed some gumption, and you were quick and handled a ball nicely. Now you’ve gone and spoiled it all. Honest, Ordway, I’d like to punch your head for you!”
“Oh, very well, do it,” replied Hugh meekly. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can say, Hanrihan.”
“A lot of good being sorry does,” snorted the other.
“It’s only two weeks, Mr. Rumford said, and I thought that possibly I could get back again,” said Hugh wistfully.